Pickles and Bottles

Just got back from a morning-evening business trip to Singapore. Had to take an early morning flight out of Singapore and hence spent the night trying not to sleep by doing a marathon session of Discovery Channel…it was bliss after being deprived of it at home where the only channels that hit the screen are the ones that my daughter approves and she obviously is years away from approving Discovery Channel as a ‘watchable’ channel. I was so thrilled like a child on a swing that the television was on full-blast until the person from the next room knocked on my door to ‘sshhh’ me down and he/she had reason to do so coz it was well past mid-night to be listening to Mythbusters from the other side of the wall! Fast forward to 4.45 a.m this morning and I was outside the hotel waving to a blue cab with a Chinese driver.

As I prepared myself for a good drive, my cabbie was annoyed by a truck loaded with construction workers that cut him and crossed the road and my cabbie said “must be Indian…!” and it indeed was an Indian! Then almost like an after thought he asked me “So…sir! Where do you come from?”…and partly embarrassed my co-countrymen’s act I sheepishly said…”Chennai” and then he was quick to continue the conversation with other questions that were meant to size me up before he chose the tone for the conversation. Finding that I was on business, he…in Matrix style…quickly loaded the ‘data chip’ in and started talking and I was once again happily encouraging him to give me a data filled talk. He spoke about the brain drain issue in Singapore causing the Government to stop releasing the annual figures of migrants, then about reasons why Singapore is not a great place to retire if you are working there and then some macro economics of how a 4.5 million population challenges new entrants in business as there is already a saturation of service providers in most of the industries and services. You gotta be bigger than the guys already in business or you will have to be shockingly different, coz the sample size to try and compete in an established space is just within that 4.5 million heads in the country! Good point indeed! Then we worked on some base figures of survival for a small business owner who sells roti-prata for a living. The space rental to setup shop in a residential area comes anywhere between 8000-14000 singapore dollars which when worked backwards meant the vendor had to sell 45 roti-pratas every working hour, assuming he ran the shop for 12 hours on all 30 days…and that would still earn him just enough to pay the rental and the overheads! Phew I once again thanked my liking to chat with the cabbies and this one especially when he bid me goodbye with a last bit of information that he has to pay a “Television Licence” of 110 dollars a month to entertain himself after a tiring day’s work. Hmm…I will never get tired of my cabbie chats!

The net is abuzz with the release of the original video footage of Michael Jackson’s fire accident in 1984. The accident that happened due to a faulty timing of a firework fired up MJ’s hair and left him with 2nd and 3rd degree burns that required him to go under the knife for a cosmetic correction, which then pushed him to painkillers and then from there to the drug trouble that apparently put him to the final slumber. The ad film was for Pepsi – a Billie Jean tuned song composed for the ad that plays in the background with montage of the crew and MJ drinking Pepsi pre-concert and then rocking at the concert. The shot requiring MJ to walk down a stair on the stage when the fireworks were to go off behind him, went in for a 6th take when the firework misfired. Pepsi apparently paid a 1million$ compensation to MJ which he confirmed in an Oprah Winfrey show later. The ad went on air and was a major hit. People close to MJ now report that his life changed after the accident. Why this was never shared earlier is a different question altogether, but fact remains that the next time I see a Pepsi ad on TV the image of MJ walking down that stair with his hair on fire and doing his signature spin on stage unaware of the fire on his head will surely haunt me. But then everything was a choice to everyone involved…like I would guess what if they’d chosen not to go in for that 6th take…so its a choice that I have to let it haunt or just plain vent out the frustration of the media calling it “Sensational Video of Michael Jackson on Fire”. Well…R.I.P MJ…and lets blame it on Pepsi!

I think I am finding a secret comfy zone in using pictures on my blog! I dont have to sweat to think of too many words or texty topics or spend time putting the post together! I’ve been snapping on my mobile while driving and while sitting around with people just to get the pics I can put on the blog and save a 1000 words. But…hmmm…I should also be writing…maybe I should do pics on alternate days…anyways thats for me to worry about. As for this post…we were out for dinner last evening with my sisters’ men and girls! The place was a new Hot Chips outlet on ECR and it looked like its been there long coz the parking was full and it was as noisy as the original Saravana Bhavan! People weren’t there to check out the place or try the food…they were there to eat…like we were! Like there are enough kids to open schools everyday…guess there are enough mouths and tummies to feed in this country…that you can open up a restaurant and be assured of a full carpark!! Dinky…my second niece was a sight to share…she ordered for parottas with kurma and the waiter said thats gonna take like ages to serve and her face fell and then the waiter was sweet enough to notice that and managed to get the parottas served as the first dish on the table where 10 of us were waiting…and her face brightened!! Bottling those moments for her to look back when she grows up…